Biometría e Inclusión Social: Irlanda, un estudio de caso
S.E. James McIntyreEmbajador de Irlanda
Buenos Aires, 15 de noviembre de 2011
Ireland/Éire/Irlanda
Ireland /Irlanda
Area / Superficie 70,282 km2
Population / Población 4.5 million / millones
GDP PPP / PBI paridad poder adquisitivo (2010)
$178 bn / mil millones
Origin of GDP / Origen del PBI (2010)
Agriculture / Agricultura
Industry / Industria
Services / Servicios
2%35%63%
Total Exports / Total Exportaciones
$110 bn / mil millones
Total Imports / Total Importaciones
$62 bn / mil millones
Novell
Ireland - A Home to Global ICT Players
Irlanda – Un hogar para los lideres en TIC
Introduction
• The theme of the conference The role of Biometrics in Social Inclusion is very important and topical.
• the use of biometrics moving from: – well established use at our external borders and in
travel documents – through to more prevalent use in the lives of our
citizens
What is social inclusion?
“ Social inclusion is a term that can be used to
describe a series of positive actions to achieve equality of access to goods and services, to assist all individuals to participate in community and society, to encourage the contribution of all persons to social and cultural life and to be aware of and to challenge all forms of discrimination. “
Tradition and Culture• Citizens born in Ireland or the UK are allowed to travel
within the Common Travel Area without producing a passport, but should be able to provide photographic identification on demand.
• No national ID card in Ireland
• No requirement to carry ID – regarded as an infringement of privacy and civil liberties.
The Picture in Ireland
• Ireland has been quite progressive in the appropriate use of biometrics in suitable applications e.g the new Public Services Card (PSC) unveiled in Ireland last month and already being distributed to social welfare recipients
• objective of PSC is in line with the theme of using biometrics to assist with social inclusion
• it enables citizens and residents who are entitled to services to get them and prevents fraudsters abusing the system
What is this Public Services Card?
• Credit card size and tamper-proof• holds a person's name, photograph and signature, the
person's Personal Public Service (PPS) number and a magnetic stripe for compatibility with existing social services cards.
• the person's name, PPS, date of birth, sex, nationality, photograph and signature will be electronically stored on the card.
• in time, the magnetic stripe will be replaced by chip and pin technology.
• the Gov expects to save between €500-625 million by cutting down on welfare fraud.
Public Services Card
Other progress on biometrics• Biometrically-enabled passport since 2006. Population of only
4.5m living in Ireland yet we issue 0.6m passports a year.
• Biometric Visas (AFIS): Ireland like UK is not in Schengen. Pilot programme in Embassy in Nigeria since March 2010 taking finger-prints of all applicants. Plans to roll-out to other Embassies.
• New Drivers licences from 2012
The future….• Fraud and identity theft continue to threaten a Government’s
ability to share and provide limited resources to those entitled to and most in need of it
• We need to look at measures, programmes and technologies to ensure the right individuals are receiving their due benefits and entitlements and that at a time when many governments are struggling financially and that our money is not being siphoned off by fraudsters
• Many of these biometric programmes can enable governments to ensure that vital services can get to those at the fringes or margins of society in an easy and convenient manner – this is social inclusion in action and piggybacking on technologies like biometrics
India• One programme that springs to mind is the Indian government’s
Unique ID card which now enables the Indian government to get social benefits and government services to its population of 1.2bn - many of whom have no identity documents or even an address – they do this by capturing their biometric fingerprint and issuing them with a card which gives them access to state entitlements – if the biggest democracy in the world can do it no doubt many others can as well
• proud to note, that a company that began in Ireland over ten years ago is the key biometric technology provider to the Indian UID project. Daon is the Irish word for human or individual. Represented here at the conference by Cathy Tilton and Leo Ring both of whom are speaking on various topics.
And finally…..• we must always be cognisant of critical issues such as
privacy and trust – we must respect the rights of our citizens at all times through these new programmes – if these programmes lose the trust of our citizens then they will fail before they have a chance.
• All of the programmes introduced in close coordination with Data Protection Commissioner.
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